Have they begun stringing barbed wire again? Have they set-up new ovens again? How about those showers, are they getting them operational again? Are they stock-piling Zyklon B gas already?

Sadly, many Americans reading the paragraph above have no idea what the heck I’m muttering about.

“The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.”— SOURCE:http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143

Here’s more: “In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program.” –SOURCE:http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143 (We urge you to read this entire article and then do some research of your own. If your knowledge of the Holocaust is sketchy, at best, then now would be an excellent time to educate yourself on what happened, and why it happened, and how WE allowed it to happen, and why it appears we have come full circle and are now on the cusp of allowing it to happen again.)

This is important — because we are seeing the early elements of another Holocaust coming together in Europe today.

Consider this: “Odessa’s Jews are prepared to evacuate should the violence in the western Ukrainian city get significantly worse, several community leaders told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Odessa’s Jewish community numbers some 30,000, down from nearly 40 percent of the city’s population before the Holocaust.
~~~~~~~~~~
While Jewish community leaders are unanimous in asserting that the violence is unconnected to the Jewish community and that they do not feel specially targeted, they agreed that, should the situation deteriorate, it would be easy for the spillover to affect their constituents.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jewish community, together with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has prepared a fleet of 70 buses, fueled and ready to go, “if, God forbid, we have to evacuate” the community’s children and any adults who want to leave, he said.” — SOURCE:http://www.jpost.com/International/Odessa-Jewish-community-mulls-emergency-evacuation-351334

THIS is the way it begins.

This is one of those times when I hope those little alarm bells, way back in my mind somewhere, are wrong.

Even after the Second World War and the Nazi directed Holocaust of the Jews, even after the international embarrassment of those countries taking any part in the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, the intense dislike for and prejudice against (Allow me to add “HATRED” for) Jewish people still runs rampant in Europe.

How bad could it have been? Read the words of this truck driver who witnessed the whole thing.

“On the Monday, the Jews of Kiev gathered by the cemetery, expecting to be loaded onto trains. The crowd was large enough that most of the men, women, and children could not have known what was happening until it was too late: by the time they heard the machine-gun fire, there was no chance to escape. All were driven down a corridor of soldiers, in groups of ten, and then shot. A truck driver described the scene: “One after the other, they had to remove their luggage, then their coats, shoes, and overgarments and also underwear … Once undressed, they were led into the ravine which was about 150 meters long and 30 meters wide and a good 15 meters deep … When they reached the bottom of the ravine they were seized by members of the Schutzmannschaft and made to lie down on top of Jews who had already been shot … The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun … I saw these marksmen stand on layers of corpses and shoot one after the other … The marksman would walk across the bodies of the executed Jews to the next Jew, who had meanwhile lain down, and shoot him.”— SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Ukraine

“Ukrainians collaborated with the German occupiers in various ways including: participating in the local administration, in German-supervised auxiliary police, Schutzmannschaft, in the German military, and serving as concentration camp guards. Nationalists in the west of Ukraine were among the most enthusiastic, hoping that their efforts would enable them to establish independent state later on.” — SOURCE:https://en.wikipedia.or

Consider this: “Sam Pivnik, 86, was only 14 when his family were rounded up in Bedzin, western Poland, and sent to the death camp at Auschwitz.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr Pivnik, who now lives in Golders Green, north London, said he was not surprised by the literature’s anti-Semitism.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Just last month Mr. Pivnik told the Daily and Sunday Express of London: “Jews have no place in Ukraine, because nothing has changed,” he said last night, “and as long as Jews remain there, nothing will change. They had no business staying in that country after the atrocities of 1939-1945.

You may recall there were pamphlets and posters, distributed in the eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk, just a few days ago, demanding that the Jewish population register, pay a new tax — or leave.

Those pamphlets and posters are a terrifying echo of the anti-Jewish atrocities carried out by Ukrainians under Nazi occupation during the Second World War. THAT’S what sent the alarm bells clanging in the dusty recesses of my mind. Apparently, the alarm was heard by many more around the globe, too.

I’m told that as new recruits of the Israeli Defense Forces double-time up the mountain of Masada, as a part of their training, they chant: “Never again,” “Never again,” over and over and over. They are pledging that what happened to their people in the Holocaust (and other atrocities since) shall never be permitted to happen again.

Today, Israel is a state with a military that ranks right up there with the world’s best warriors. It has an intelligence service which puts the US intelligence services to shame, and even more important it has fearless leadership with a former officer of Israel’s Special Forces serving as Prime Minister.

I cannot visualize Israel allowing a second Holocaust to occur without utilizing their military muscle to intervene. And that scenario brings us back to the initiation point for a Third World War.

Look, Americans are tired of war. We are especially tired of getting involved in other people’s wars.

America currently has no military leadership at the Commander-in-Chief level. NONE!

The political party now in charge of America’s government has no idea what military power is for, nor how to apply it. They have such naive ideas as the responsibility to protect any peoples on the globe who cannot protect themselves. Sounds good in Sunday School, and even on paper — but — in the real world it will break a country financially, and sap its morale and its military — all in short order.

No. Americans don’t want another war — at the moment. But — we don’t want another Holocaust, either, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to see that it does not occur.

We Are All Entitled To PrivacyA Commentary by J. D. Longstreet********************

I’ve taken a few days before broaching this subject. If I have learned anything over the years about the MsM (Mainstream Media), it is that they tend to act as lemmings when they sense a sensational story and then they switch from lemmings to sharks in a feeding frenzy when they draw blood. It really makes no difference whose blood it is, either.

Now, I realize it is not the way of the world in 2014 to actually take a few days to annylize a situation before shooting off one’s mouth. Today, that is considered a timid approach to commenting on current events.

Well, be that as it may, I STILL like to turn things inside out and try and learn what actually happened before I make a comment.

For instance: Mr. Sterling, of NBA basketball fame, is being accused of being a racist. He may be. I don’t know.

Look, so far as I can remember, I have never heard Mr. Sterling’s name mentioned in a conversation that held any interest for me … ever. I tend to dismiss people, places, and things from my memory — if I deem them unimportant.

I don’t follow professional basketball — at all. It doesn’t strike me as a game or contest. In my estimation it is more an exhibition than a contest. It holds absolutely no interest for me, ranking right up there with soccer, which I still hold is an un-American game and ought not be played inside the borders of the US.

So, until the recent brush fire over something Mr. Sterling said erupted into my TV news programming, I was oblivious to the man and quite happy being so.

Having said all the above, it seems to me we are missing the most important story in all the hoopla: Mr. Sterling’s right to privacy.

Apparently, Mr. Sterling’s right to privacy (judging from reports on the news) has been violated — BIG TIME.Consider this: “You can hate Sterling’s remarks and still be alarmed at the reaction.

Now, some of you readers will not take kindly to what I’m about to say, but — I don’t give a whit what Mr. Sterling said, one way or the other. See, it was a PRIVATE conversation, or, at least, BELIEVED to be so by him — and — what he said, or did not say, is none of my business — and none of your business.

If I were Mr. Sterling I would have investigators digging to learn who made the now infamous recording (If he doesn’t already know.) and even more important, WHY did they make it? What ELSE is going on here? Anything? Nothing? I haven’t a clue — and I am perfectly happy with that.

Every day the US is looking more and more like Nazi Germany of the 1930’s and the old Soviet Union. In both those countries it was not enough that the government was spying on its citizens, but they openly encouraged and, in some cases, rewarded citizens to spy upon their very own family members and neighbors.

We have now arrived at that next step in the formulation of the American Police State. Have you noticed the signs: “If you see something, say something?” Maybe they ought to read — “If you can record something in private, then do so.” Heck, practically everything we do, 24/7/365, is monitored and recorded for a potential witness against us whenever the government decides to bring the hammer down.

Individual freedom and individual liberty is all but gone in America. The Marxists controlling the US government will not be satisfied until they have a citizenry resembling, little cookie cutter commies marching in step to their orders. We get ever closer to that scene from Hell every day.

I hold that the right to privacy is a “right” granted by God — and it is inherent. Privacy is an essential constituent or characteristic of who we are as human beings. It is what we Southerners like to refer to as “the right to be let alone.” In Dixie, stated simply, it is thus made clear: “You stay the hell out of my business, and I’ll stay the hell out of yours.” When you begin to meddle in MY affairs it clearly means you are looking for trouble and, as the scriptures say: “Seek and ye shall find!”

It would appear from what little we know of the circumstances surrounding the event, Mr. Sterling was ambushed. Otherwise, it seems to me, he would have to have authorized the taping of his tirade. That seems most unlikely considering the content of the tirade.

Look. I don’t care, one whit, how Mr. Sterling feels about black people, or white people, for that matter. I just don’t care. That’s between him and his god and Mr. Sterling, not I, will have to work it out with the deity of his choice. Judging from his reported age, he needs to work it out fairly quickly, though.

There was a time, in the not too distant past, in America when everyone was entitled to his or her own opinion. That time is now past. Now, your opinion must conform to the dogma of the political Left. If it doesn’t you are ostracized and often destroyed. This is a perfect mirror reflection of the Bolsheviks, a Russian left-wing majority group that followed Lenin and eventually became the Russian Communist Party that took over Russia and turned it into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which became a boil on the backside of the entire world.

The American Left and the Russian Communist Left are cut from the exact same bolt of cloth.

THAT’s what I see on display here.

And PLEASE — don’t try to tell me America is a racist country today. I grew up in a racist country. I drank from “Whites only” water fountains. I went to doctor’s with “whites only” waiting rooms and black waiting rooms. (Notice I didn’t say “blacks only” waiting rooms. See, when the white’s waiting room filled, the whites automatically moved into the black’s waiting room and the blacks wound up out in the hallway, sometimes sitting on the floor in the hallway).

I ate at restaurants where blacks had to eat outside and were served through little windows much like drive-thru windows work today… but you walked up to them, you did not drive. I rode on buses where blacks had to to sit on the back seat, if they were allowed on the bus at all. I went to the movies where blacks were relegated to the back of the balcony section, and on Sundays, I attended church where not a single black face shone from the sea of white parishioners piously facing the white pastor.

Compare those days to these — where none of that is happening — plus, the President is a black man, the nation’s Attorney General is a black man, a Supreme Court Justice is a black man, and one of the US Senators from my home State of South Carolina, no less, is a black man — and the list goes on.

Is there racism in America. Yes! And there always will be. We come wired that way. It is a defense mechanism Mother Nature endowed us with to suspect anything, and anybody, not like ourselves. Some of us learn to overcome it while, conversely, some learn how to use it to profit obscenely from it. And then there are those who learn to use it to excuse their own laziness and salve their own conscience when cashing those government checks every month. To each his own.

But there is something different with the Sterling story. I can’t put my finger on it, but something just doesn’t add up. This old news hound’s ears are pricked-up and my hackles are up and trembling. But, hey, I’m retired now!

Send Missionaries To The US … PLEASE!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*****************

Back at the dawn of history, when I was a but a wee lad, my family had the God-given insight to bring me up in an evangelical church. I had no say in where I attended church, See, kids back then kept their mouths shut and their ears open and paid heed to their parents, their elders. (That is why I contend that my generation is so much smarter than the generations that followed.)

Anyway, I recall clearly how my church was referred to as a “Missionary” Baptist Church. See, our congregation helped to support missionaries the world over. It was our church’s way of carrying out the last instructions Christ gave his church when he took leave of this world to go prepare a place for his followers. Here’s what he said:

“19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” This is referred to as “The Great Commission” and you will find it at Matthew 28:19 – 20. (The New Testament)

In a single sentence the Christian church was given its assignment — the sole purpose of the church until the return of Christ.

Back in the middle of the twentieth century, many of the Christian denominations in America were trying their dead level best to carry out those orders, for that was what they were — orders.

It is true that back then America was truly a Christian nation. On Sunday mornings you had to arrive early to get a seat in a pew, else you were left standing along the back wall, or the ushers placed folding chairs in the aisles (Which would freak out today’s fire marshals!)

Americans went to church back then. Our little church constantly had well over 200 persons in Sunday School. That number is far more than many mainline churches today enjoy in their Sunday morning worship services!

As I mentioned above, we gave lots of financial support to missionaries the world over.

Now, the vast majority of the membership were blue collar workers who were employed by a cotton mill which had once been the largest cotton mill under one roof in the world. Nobody got rich, but we all lived well. We had a sturdy roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food on the table, a family that loved each other, a father who would go to whatever end was necessary to protect his little family, and we had a string anchor in the faith of our fathers.

The tithe was then, as it is today, ten percent of one’s income. And over and above that, the offering plates were passed at all services for those wishing to make a “love” offering toward the financing of the church’s mission. Those offering plates were filled each Sunday.

Several times a year the offerings were dedicated to one missionary or other serving the heathens and pagans in far-flung corners of the earth so that we could carry out that Great Commission I mentioned above.

Once I recall, we helped purchase an airplane for a missionary, as I recall, in Africa. The only time we ever saw the plane was when the missionary thoughtfully sent us a snapshot of it with her and a few of her dusky skinned parishioners standing beside it.
Now, recall, I said the membership was blue collar. They had very little disposable income after the bills were paid, their family’s needs taken care of, and groceries were bought.

Their wallets may have been small but their hearts were huge.

One year the church decided that each church family would give their entire salary for that week to a fund for a particular missionary who had hit a rough patch and was in dire need of funding. And we did. And yes, it hurt … but it hurt GOOD!

I got to thinking about all this when I saw an article entitled: “China May Soon Be the World’s Most Christian Nation.” My first thought was that maybe all those missionaries we helped fund really had an impact on China.

“Demographic research shows that Communist China may become the world’s most Christian nation in the next 15 years, a projection the godless government in Beijing is doing all it can to refute.

The article goes on: “Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, predicted recently that “China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon.” Yang, considered one of the leading experts on faith and religion in China, said that China’s Protestant population is set to swell to some 160 million, putting it ahead of the United States, whose Protestant population topped out at around 159 million a few years ago, but which has reportedly been declining as of late.”Here in America true Christianity is in mortal danger. For in America, you see, if a minister steps into the pulpit and preaches the true Gospel, he is subject to be dragged into court on charges of hate crimes. His church’s tax exempt status is in danger of being revoked.

I wondered recently how long it would be before government agents will be walking church parking lots during services, taking note of license plate numbers of attendees because the government already considers conservative Christians potential domestic terrorists.

So, I appeal to the Christian countries of the world, send Christian missionaries!America needs your help! Please send missionaries armed with the true gospel, not the watered down pabulum fed congregants from the pulpits of America’s churches today.

America’s Christians did not forget you when you were begging for the gospel, now, we, here in America, need, desperately, to find our way again and we seem unable to do it without outside assistance.

Understand, the Christian church in America may soon find it necessary to go underground just as the church in many of your countries had to do and just as the early Christians in Rome did to insure the gospel survived.

How bad is it today in America? Recent research found: ” … that each generation is more post-Christian than the one that came before it. Only 28 percent of seniors (ages 67 and greater) are considered post-Christian, as compared to 35 percent of Boomers (ages 48 to 66), 40 percent of Busters (ages 29 to 47) and 48 percent of Mosaics (ages 18 to 28). Kinnaman says this type of research could serve as a glimpse into the “spiritual, moral and social future” of the United States.”— SOURCE: http://www.christianpost.com/news/america-becoming-increasingly-post-christian-research-shows-93967/

In an article entitled: “The Spirit of Tolerance, Post-Christian America and the Laodicean Church” published in July of 2013, the author, Larry Tomczak, said the following: “This month, the youth-oriented Relevant magazine, published by Cameron Strang, ran an article on the topic of post-Christian America. Quoting a Barna Group study, the article cited that in America, seven of 10 people describe themselves as Christian. Yet consider the following statistics cited:

First Amendment About To Be Shredded By Obama And Dems
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*******************

Actually, it has taken a bit longer than I had expected, but Obama and his “Marxocrats” are finally getting around to us, you know, conservative broadcasters, commentators, and bloggers.

Yep, they are finally going to make an all out effort to shut us down — and up! We will officially be “Haters.” Then they’ll accuse us of hate crimes because we don’t follow the “party line” and slap our behinds in jail, or reeducation camps, much like the old Maoist reeducation camps of a few decades ago.

So far the MsM hasn’t made much of this because they are controlled from the Obama’s West Wing or directly from the Oval Office.

( I wonder how “amazed” the Leftist press will be when Obama’s henchmen march into their press rooms and begin smashing computers and ripping out hard drives with incriminating evidence on them to send those poor Leftists — now “useless idiots” to Obama’s gulags for crimes against Obama — or the state.

It always happens that way. The Left just never accepts that THEY will be the very first one’s “detained” by the tyrants when round-up time comes. I’d laugh were it not for the tears.)
So, what the heck am I talking about?

The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 “would create an updated comprehensive report examining the role of the Internet and other telecommunications in encouraging hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation and create recommendations to address such crimes,” stated a news release from Markey’s office.”

The Bill “… calls for the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to “analyze information on the use of telecommunications, including the Internet, broadcast television and radio, cable television, public access television, commercial mobile services, and other electronic media, to advocate and encourage violent acts and the commission of crimes of hate.”

I find it astounding that a MsM newspaper, the Boston Herald, referred to the bill as: “frankly chilling.” In fact, the paper said they found it: “frankly chilling” that Markey is seeking to “empower an obscure federal agency to begin scouring the Internet, TV and radio for speech it finds threatening.
“Perhaps he could crack a briefing book on the crisis in Ukraine rather than looking for his own extra-constitutional methods of punishing speech he finds unacceptable,” added the Herald editorial.”– SOURCE: http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_35361.php#sthash.eyEsU99s.dpuf

As a commentator, I have been offering opinion pieces for many decades. There can be no doubt that from time to time any commentator worth his mike or keyboard will offend someone, and inspire others. It is the nature of what we do. We give voice to those who have something to say but for various reasons haven’t the wherewithal to make their feelings public and thence are shut out of the public debate. We are their voices. It has been said that we afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

But the plain fact is that we make those we oppose very uncomfortable drawing attention to their grand mistakes, their foibles, their machinations in the shadows – out of the public’s sight, and — inevitably — to their lies.We make their lives miserable. We are the burr under their saddles, the thorn in their flesh, and — all too often — we become the only conscience they have.
You bet — they want to shut us up. The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 will go a very long way in muzzling critics of the Left whether behind a microphone, a keyboard, or in front of a camera.

Students of history will tell you this is nothing new. It dates back to the Spanish Inquisition and in more modern times, the Nazi regime of Hitler, the old Soviet Union, and Maoist China.

… and now it is here … in America.
It is just more of the American Police State.

Any day now, I expect the announcement to go out to those in the executive branch of the US legislature that they should drop by the West Wing and be measured for their tailor-made brown shirts to be worn at all times for the duration of the Obama Regime.

I am very afraid, dear reader, that we have allowed America to become so corrupt that no tweaking will suffice to restore our old constitutional, representative, republic. America has gone the way of all democracies — suicide.

Adding Age AND Gaining Insight
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
******************

Recently, I have noticed something a bit different in my work, that is to say — my writing, my commentaries, if you please.

I have noticed that my faith has much more influence on my thinking than I had thought. I’m told that is a sign of aging and wisdom. I can readily agree with the aging part. However, the wisdom part, is something else entirely. That, dear reader, is decided by you.
That’s is a little out of character for me. I have always felt a man’s faith was between him and his chosen deity — and nobody else. As my family will unhesitatingly tell you “Papa” is subject to go off on a tear over a subject having to do with religion quicker than any other subject.

I have found, now that I am well into the eighth decade of my lifespan, that I am far more able to cope with the vexing problems that living life as a human being tends to deliver to our doorstep. That does not mean that I don’t stumble and fall every once in a while, nor does it mean that I am mistake free. Look. ALL the erasers on my pencils are well worn.

Often, I have been extremely lucky, having the ability to learn (usually) from my mistakes. That is learned behavior, behavior taught me — along with many other things — by my father. Thus armed, I have been able to inform those who follow behind me of my personal flawed processes that led to my latest embarrassment — whatever that might be.

One of life’s lessons I have learned (the hard way) is that a man who does not acknowledge and learn from his mistakes and then pass that invaluable information along to the younger generation — is a FOOL.

It is said that a man can count his real friends on the fingers of his hands. Some say the fingers of ONE of his hands. When I was younger I thought that was nonsensical. As I have grown older I have learned that a man is blessed, indeed, if he has ONE real friend.

When I refer, to and use, the word “friend,” please understand that I am not using that word in any context in which it can be associated with today’s social media on the Internet. Those friends exist only in zeros and ones. They are purely binary language.

I have made a number of acquaintances by way of the Internet that I most likely would not have made without the web. I treasure these connections.

It is said that a friend will help you hide. It is also said that a TRUE friend will help you hide the body! Sometimes, these “hard sayings” have a bit more truth to them than we are comfortable with.

I have become convinced that once the “finish line” of one’s life is peeking over the horizon, it tends to help one focus on that which is really important.

For a little over fifty years I have been walking my life’s pathway with death ever beside me. We have become “comfortable” companions. I know that sounds impossible, but like anything else in life, constant contact with a person, place, or thing, will result in a certain level of comfort in the presence of that companion.

Back in my mid-twenties, the family was summoned to my bedside and told that I would not live ’til morning. Obviously, I did survive.

My doctor recently told me that he has been constantly surprised that I have survived episode after episode of vicious attacks that should have taken my life and that he had expected me to die a number of times in the past fifty-three years only to have me still around making others uncomfortable, as is my wont.

So what keeps me going? I wish I knew. I have blamed it on pure stubbornness and persistence, something I believe I may have inherited from my Celtic ancestry.

More than anything, though, I believe it was my father. He taught, he instructed, he indoctrinated persistence in ALL things. You don’t quit, you don’t give up, you never give in, you never, ever, admit defeat — for a man is never conquered until he surrenders.

My father also taught self reliance. A man should depend upon no one — or nothing — but himself … period. A young man during the depression, my father was determined that his children would be able to fend for themselves if, and when, the time came.

He taught me to hunt and trap. He taught me to build traps, bait, and set traps and those secrets that disguise the human scent on a trap. He had me running the traps before school on icy Carolina mornings.

I thought of my Dad when the story on Cliven Bundy broke. See, I have been there — with my Dad, too, many decades ago.

Our confrontation was over the state taking a portion of our land to change the path of a roadway. It seems the state engineers had built in a huge, unnecessary, curve in their plans for the new roadway and that curve would take a huge, unnecessary, bite out of our land, which sat in the corner of the planned new road and the existing highway with which it would intersect.

Dad went to the state capital and met with the state engineers and explained that their survey was wrong, and that it was unnecessary to take that chunk of land when the old path of the roadway was a much better roadway than the newly planned one.

The state listened — and refused to change their plans. So the morning they work crew showed up to begin bulldozing our land, my father and I met them — with our guns. Dad, careful to remain on our property at all times, stepped up where he could be clearly seen and heard and announced that he intended to shoot the first man to climb aboard the bulldozer.

After a hurried conference, the work crew left. A few days later we were visited by representatives of the state engineer’s office. Dad had had me sketch out a route for the proposed roadway that would eliminate that godawful curve and not take a foot of our land.

Survey stakes were removed, a new survey was run, and the proposed roadway was moved, the curve was taken out, and wonder of wonders, we didn’t lose any land, at all.

At no time was law enforcement involved, period.

Would my father have opened fire? Look. There was no political correctness in those days. A man said what he meant and meant what he said. I never doubted he would fire on those men. More importantly, THEY never doubted it, either.

America was a better country then. We were tough, we had honor and more importantly, we understood how important honor was. Back then we still understood that a man’s home, his land, his livestock, belonged to him.He had a right, indeed, a duty to defend them from all threats, no matter the quarter from which those threats came.

Individual rights, personal freedom and liberty, were the foundation of the constitution and the constitution the foundation of the country.

I mentioned earlier that my faith has become a mainstay, a source of support and stability for me as the years pile up.

I think all my life I have been training for the end of my life. I think we are are granted that opportunity. Some of us take advantage and prepare while others, well, just let it slide.

It’s the lesson my father instilled in me as a lad. “You are responsible, son. Only you.”

When it becomes my turn to walk that valley, God willing, I intend to walk it with my back straight, my head held high, leaning slightly forward in expectation of the wondrous things awaiting my arrival at the end of the valley.

But, I’ve not entered the valley yet. So, my pen shall not rest in my hand. There is yet much to do, much to be said, places to go, people to see, ideas to share, thoughts to formulate, … much to do.

Yes, I’m bent. But I’m not bowed. I’m bloodied, but I’m not slain. So I’ll lay me down and rest a bit — then, I’ll rise to fight again.

The Public Schools system of the US has crashed and burned! No longer are our children the best educated in the world. Now our scholars rank among the less well educated even among a few of the third world countries. This is a shame we have brought upon ourselves by inviting the Federal Government and the Unions into our schools.

One-room schoolhouses turned out scholars of unequaled accomplishment when compared to today’s graduates. A high school education, just 50 years ago, is the equivalent of a college degree today. Our Public School teachers are barely qualified to teach. But, they have a Union to see that they are paid well, whether the can teach or not! Oh, you thought teachers unions were for the welfare of the students??? Surely you jest!

Our local school boards have gorged themselves from the federal trough at the expense of local control of the curriculum and the rules and regulations.

Pupils are not challenged by the courses they study and fall short of goals set by the federal Government. So, the schools are now “teaching the tests”. Indoctrinate the students in the questions and answers on the test in hopes of attaining the sought after number of students passing the tests. A well-rounded education is lost to the efforts to make a good showing on the tests.

Students are forced to remain in school even though they have no interest in what is being taught and are a distraction to that handful of youngsters who really do want to learn.

Self-esteem is the number one course of study. Our students are dumb as fence posts but, by golly, they think highly of themselves! They can’t read their diplomas but they sure do feel good about it!

So what do we do about it?

Take back our schools for a start. Refuse federal money and all the strings that go with it. If we have to teach school, again, in one-room school buildings, then so be it.

Test the teachers. If they have no business in a classroom, see to it that they are removed.

Make school voluntary. If a student does not want to be there, then don’t make them. This will allow those students who do wish an education to get one without the continuous interruptions by the bored kids who’d rather be someplace else.

Discipline? Yes. Expulsion. Period. Expel troublemakers for a few days, a few weeks, and full school year, or forever, depending on the infraction. Make school a serious business again. We owe an environment, suitable for learning, to those students who are there for the purpose of learning and making a better life for themselves.

We can take our schools back. We have to want to do so and we have to be ready to make the sacrifices necessary to insure our children a good education, not the pitiful excuse for an education they are getting now.

(Spend a few minutes in the comments section of any blog on the Internet and take special notice of the sentence structure, the composition, the horrible grammar, the god awful spelling, and the obliviousness to it all by the writer. You have just taken the measure of the product of the American public education system. It is beyond horrible.)

One of a parent’s primary obligations, as a parent, is to see that their children have a shot at the brass ring in life. The first, and most fundamental, step in that process is a solid education.

Government vouchers were killed by the teachers unions because they rightly understood that the public school system would crumble, and collapse, as parents pulled their children out of those useless institutions and placed them in private schools where they had some say, and some control, over the quality of education their kids were getting.

The public school system is near collapse right now. I don’t think it would be a bad thing, actually. When an institution is so badly damaged, and no longer serves it’s primary purpose, it SHOULD be trashed and a new institution begun in its place. Create an Institution to educate our kids. They’re not getting an eduction today. They’re getting an indoctrination.

Parents, we owe our kids that! We owe them a chance to make the best of their talents. We owe them a shot at a good, solid, education. Get them out of the public schools and into a private, or parochial, school where there are qualified teachers who still have an incentive to teach our kids, the will to teach our kids, and the desire to teach our kids.

The public school system is America is a failure. It should be put out of its misery.

A Time of Reckoning Approaches
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*******************

As Americans draw ever closer to a time of reckoning, many have begun to take notice of that freedom we have remaining.

Some of us old, grizzled, scarred-up, graybeard veterans of multiple past skirmishes with power hungry Leftist zealots in our government are actually gratified today.

Why, you ask?
We have finally begun to make inroads into the nearly closed minds of younger Americans who have now lived long enough to allow some of the Marxist indoctrination from their days in the government school system to wear thin. Plus, their own personal experience with REAL LIFE, as opposed to the communist Utopia sold by the Leftists, has, too, worn thin and it is beginning to be seen as the ethereal mirage that it really is. Their perception is changing.

We can thank Obamacare for so many Americans coming to realize that the cheese really ain’t free!

How many times did we warn that if you thought healthcare was expensive before Obamacare, just wait until Obamacare gave it to you —free!?

But, Obamacare is just a part of the story of the deconstruction of the Obama/Marxist dream.

There are the lies. SOOOO many lies. Americans believe NOTHING coming out of the Obama Administration. They will lie even when telling the truth is easier. That says to me they really DO think you and I are stupid, ignorant, and unable to think for, and care for, ourselves. Of course, that DOES describe so much of the voter base of the Democratic (Marxocratic) Party these days that I suppose that explains why the Dems think of all of us in the same way.

Fortunately for America we are not all dumb, stupid, and ignorant.

As far as I am able to ascertain, the Obama Regime is the second American presidential administration to suspend the constitution. The first, of course, was the Lincoln Administration.

Lincoln’s abuse of the constitution wasn’t so bad, after all. It only cost the lives of 700,000 Americans, tore a country apart, forced it back together at the point of a federal bayonet, and today the country suffers the stress of a nation with two distinct cultures and strong regional distrust between Americans — to this very day.

As if the lingering suspicions from the “recent unpleasantness” of the War of Northern Aggression was not enough, our failed President has driven a wedge deeper between the black and white races in America.

Look. Obama won the Presidency precisely BECAUSE he is black. (Well, at least HALF black, anyway.) In 2008 it was as though nothing Obama said was of any importance. The only important thing was the color of his skin. America had decided it was time to elect a black President and, come hell or high water, they would — and did. Blacks voting for Obama came in in the high 90’s percentile. Even so, it was white voters who put Obama over the top and into the Oval Office.

Yes, it was an historical “feel good” moment for the country. But as everyone (save for the Leftists) knows — those “feel good” moments are totally worthless in the real world.

Obama is a failed President. Oh, the history books will not record that. It’s too embarrassing, too, uh, truthful. Today’s history is mostly fable written by the revisionists of the Marxist persuasion, in any event. Any Obama short comings that cannot be left out of the official record will be blamed upon Obama’s opposition, the Republicans.

Obama has done his race no favors. All black politicians will be judged, henceforth, using Obama as the rule. The ethics of ALL black politicians will now be called into question. As a result, it will be a cold day in the warmer climes when another black man resides in the Oval Office of the United States. And that is sad, really, because there are some extremely well qualified conservative black politicians out there who would, in my estimation, make an excellent Commanders – in – Chief and President of the US. Former Congressman, Colonel Allen West, leaps to mind.

There is a school of thought that Obama is a failure because of overexposure. Oh, I agree that he was — and is — overexposed! It is so bad that when the man shows up on my TV to make another of his boring speeches, the channel is changed instantly, or the TV is switched off immediately. He has nothing to say, I care to hear — other than: “I resign, effective immediately.”

No. It was not overexposure that ruined Obama’s Presidency, it was Obama’s un-American political philosophy and his Marxist agenda for America. THAT’S what ruined him! He is surrounded by so many Communists, Marxists, and Socialists, that the West Wing is referred to (by some) now as the Kremlin West.

Around the world Obama — and America under his leadership — have become laughingstocks. He has proved, unquestionably, that he is unable to go toe to toe with America’s enemies, and that means America’s friends are now on their own for the first time since before the Second World War. Now, instead of America’s enemies being frightened, it’s America’s friends who are frightened — and with good reason.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, the natives are growing more restless as each day passes. See, Americans have an option most people do not enjoy. We have the option, in fact, the duty, to take our government from the hands of those who prove detrimental to the constitution and return her to constitutional rule.

The title of this piece mentions a time of reckoning approaching. Many feel that a calendar date can actually be set — for November 2014. Americans are gong to make every effort to take the entire legislative branch of the government over and bring a screeching halt to the Marxist agenda of Obama and his henchmen. That is the peaceful — and preferable — way to begin the process of returning America to her rightful condition as a constitutional representative government.

Look. America is a product of revolution. Is it so difficult to imagine a continuing revolution to guarantee the survival of our freedom and liberty?

Victor Hugo a French poet, novelist, and dramatist once said: “When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.”

I’ll close with this brief reminder from the American Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The men who penned those few lines changed the world. They did not do it lightly.

When next revolution comes to these shores if will be for the same reason. It will be men doing what they are convinced they MUST do.